After a major multi-car incident on Lap 54 effectively reset the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, Scott Dixon emerged as the leader but still had to try and stretch out his fuel to the finish with Conway and the rest of the field chasing after him.

As Conway increased his pressure, a radio transmission from Dixon’s Target Chip Ganassi Racing team disclosed that the defending Verizon IndyCar Series champion would be half a lap short on fuel.

Instead, Dixon came to the pits with two laps remaining, and Conway did the rest by holding back Will Power to claim his second career win at the Beach.

And after being considered an afterthought on the twisty tracks despite its namesake’s recent improvement in road racing acumen, Ed Carpenter Racing has its first victory on a street course.

“Just an awesome job by the team. We weren’t sure what we had, but we hung in there all the way to the end and it just seemed to come to us…I can’t believe it – two times a Long Beach winner. Unbelievable.”

Conway was one of multiple drivers that was forced to work his way around the aforementioned crash, which started when pole sitter Ryan Hunter-Reay went to the inside of Josef Newgarden after the latter had just emerged with the lead following a pit stop.

Going into Turn 4, Hunter-Reay made contact with Newgarden and both of them went into the wall. By the time the melee was over, James Hinchcliffe, Takuma Sato, and Tony Kanaan had also been collected and eliminated from the race.

Conway credited team member Lee Bentham for helping him navigate through the chaos to ensure he’d have a shot at the win.

“Luckily, he told me to stay right [over the radio] and I stayed right through the corner,” he added to NBCSN. “I saw the two on the left and then another two came together and speared right, so I managed to get in between and that was it.”

The race restarted with 16 laps to go and Conway was in fourth behind leader Dixon, Justin Wilson and Power. But off the restart, Dixon and Wilson came together going into Turn 8, and the latter went into the runoff with terminal damage.

Another caution brought about what would be the final restart of the race with 10 to go, and this time, Conway was on the rear wing of Dixon, who had emerged unscathed from the run-in with Wilson.

Dixon, known as perhaps the best fuel conservation man in all of IndyCar, had last pitted on Lap 44 and was trying desperately to not only save fuel but keep Conway in his rear view mirror.

Unfortunately for him, it was not to be.

“We were only about half a lap short, but the last thing I wanted to do was run out of gas in front of the whole field and cause a big accident,” Dixon said.

The New Zealander was also remorseful for the contact with Wilson, whom he wasn’t expecting to be on the outside of him.

“You’re looking to the right [at Turn 8] and I obviously got into him,” he said. “I felt a little tap there but I apologize to him and his whole team.”

Power’s run to second wasn’t a clean one either, as he made contact with Simon Pagenaud going into Turn 6 and sent him into the tires there on a Lap 32 restart.

Afterwards, the IndyCar points leader admitted he was surprised that he didn’t get a penalty for the contact and apologized to Pagenaud, who recovered to finish fifth.

However, the Frenchman’s in-car camera spotted him wagging a finger at the Australian on the cool-down lap – and he indicated that he wasn’t in the mood to accept Power’s mea culpa either.

“Did I want to hear his apology? I thought it was a little late for that,” he said.

With Hunter-Reay and Hinchcliffe sidelined after the big crash, Carlos Munoz picked up the Andretti Autosport banner and took it to the podium with a third-place finish in his Long Beach debut.

“My teammates had some bad luck, but it’s racing – it’s happened to me a long time ago,” Munoz said. “But I’m really happy for the third place. Those were some great last laps…I have to thank my crew, who did an awesome job on pit stops.”

Also doing well was Juan Pablo Montoya, who finished fourth and came away with the first Top-5 finish in his return to open-wheel racing after a seven-year run in NASCAR.